Road Trip

Yes, I finally found the cord that connects my camera to my laptop! Actually my dad found it. I left it at home... so he mailed it to me. Finally, I am able to share the pictures from my road trip to Utah! Take a look.

 The drive from South Texas to Utah is... really long. Two of my good friends Robert and Phillip drove up with me, in my two seater truck I might add... it was a little bit cramped but really fun. We made it to Roswell the first day, and spent the night with a friend. The next morning we woke up early and hit the road. Since we all have made that drive several times before we decided to take a new route. Normally we would go through Albuquerque and the bottom corner of Colorado, but we decided to go up through Santa Fe and spend a little bit more time in Colorado. I am very glad we did. Somewhere between Santa Fe and Colorado we started to get into a really scenic area, and since we had been in the car forever already we decided to make a stop. We ended up running into a "natural amphitheater". Best thing ever.

 We hiked into the amphitheater and spent fifteen minutes just yelling and singing just to listen to the echo. It was awesome.

 We also came across Jay "Rock" Leno. Please tell me you see the resemblance.

Found some "precious" stone.

 It was especially difficult for us to get back in that tiny little car and drive away, but we did. The drive through Colorado was gorgeous. We stopped at a restaurant called "Restaurant" (clever name eh?) in some  little town in the mountains.

Once we got into Utah we stopped at Wilson Arch, which is the largest, and just so happens to be right off the highway. We hiked up into the arch (something I had never done before).

I just kept thinking "This is huge!" See how small Rob and Phil look in comparison.

 We watched the sunset. Kinda.

 Besides the fact that I almost died hiking around this thing, it was amazing. A reminder to me of how beautiful this world is. I had the best time on that road trip.

Carli

Topaz Everywhere.

This past weekend was very eventful. I felt like I was constantly on the go. Im glad that it is Sunday and I can relax.

One of the many adventures I embarked on this weekend was Topaz Mountain. We drove about three and a half hours south to get there. Courtney and I were wondering why we were driving three and a half hours to a mountain for a picnic when there is a billion mountains right next door. Ben’s response was “Topaz Mt. has a bunch of rocks that you can break open and find Topaz! Hence the name.” I then became increasingly excited. Topaz everywhere?! I was planning what to do with my fortune…

We get there.

Not exactly what I had expected. The mountain looks like a dead man… Where’s the Topaz? We were told told that we had to climb the mountain to find the treasure.

And so we did…

That climb was hard… First of all, I was wearing these rinky dink pair of sneakers that had absolutely no traction, and second, we were basically climbing on loose gravel. We stopped for a break ever 10 feet.

As we climbed we attempted to break large rocks, that we were hoping had topaz inside them, by throwing the rocks down the side of the mountain. Probably not the safest method… After what seemed like a long climb we realized that the fortune we thought we were going to be taking home wasn’t going to be taken home… Apparently all the Topaz is hidden away in the top of the mountain and we were in no shape to climb up there to get it. Especially with those sneakers I was wearing.

But I did find some really interesting rocks.

Once we realized we weren’t going to find topaz we sat down. Courtney got thirsty and started the climb back down. 

Not at all looking forward to the climb back down…I decided to stay a while. I sat there and looked out over the valley. Thats when I realized that as great as it would have been to find at least a little baby piece of topaz, just having the opportunity to sit there and see only a little sliver of the worlds beauty was the real gem.

I had an over whelming feeling of being so small, yet so important.

Carli